The local WESSA Branch, under the watchful eyes of Tim and Isobel Douglas-Jones, diligently collects data from their regular beach clean ups by recording dates, venues, number of volunteers and number of bags of litter collected.
In the period from 4 March 2017 to 18 November 2023 WESSA Volunteers have removed 4039 Municipal Rubbish Bin sized bags of litter from various spots around Algoa Bay. Volunteers are always welcome to ‘do their bit’ for our environment.
Connect with WESSA here: https://www.facebook.com/WESSAEastCape
The Beach Clean ups are all volunteer driven – bags are supplied and driven away after each participant returns their bag/s to the collection point. Clean ups take around 2 hours of your time and are a great way to appreciate our wonderful beaches amongst like minded people whilst doing a solid for the environment.
Below are visual and tabular representations of the Beach Clean Up stats since 4 March 2017:
Index: Tabular Data | Bags Per Venue | Bags per Clean Up | Volunteers per Clean Up | How much litter enters the South African coastline every day?
No of Volunteers per Clean Up:
No of Bags per Clean Up:
No of Bags Per Venue:
Beach Clean Up Tabular Sortable Data:
How much litter enters the South African coastline every day?
The numbers are difficult to quantify as they are based on sampling done by fifferent bodies at different time sof the year with special emphasis by different groups on different types of waste – platic, mineral, organic, recyclable etc.
According to Verster and Bouwman in a 2020 study – Every year between 15 000 and 40 000 tonnes of plastic enter the oceans that surround the country. South Africans generate roughly 42 million tonnes of general waste every year (DEA, 2018), the majority of which is plastic. Roughly 80% of marine pollution originates on land (UNEP, 2020).
According to the ‘real-time information’, every year, up to 250,000 tonnes of litter is dumped into the oceans around South Africa. This marine litter can cause damage to ship engines and have negative impacts on marine ecosystems.
The length of the South African coastline is approximately 2,850 kilometers.
So, with all things being equal, the amount of litter dumped in our oceans per kilometer per month is 250 000/12/2850 = 7.3 tons (0.24 tons per day) OR, per Verster and Bouwman the amount of plastic that enters our coastline per kilometer per month is 40000/12/2850 = 1.16 tons (0.04 tons per day).
There have been a handful of studies in Africa looking at macrolitter associated with rivers. In South Africa, visual observations of litter flowing down three rivers into Algoa Bay estimated discharge rates of 22–1500 items day. – Springer.com: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-08626-7_2
Data on marine litter is crucial to guide waste management but is scarce in third-world countries such as South Africa. We established the first baseline measurement of litter accumulation on two beaches differing in public access in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, the poorest province in South Africa. Four 10-day surveys were conducted on each beach between June 2019 and June 2020. Results revealed that most of the litter (95.7%) was of South African origin and likely came from local land-based sources (e.g., beachgoers or a local river). Daily accumulation rates at the study sites ranged between 24.58 and 86.54 items·100 m-1·day-1, an order of magnitude lower than rates from other cities in Africa. However, like elsewhere, plastic (including foam) made up the bulk (74.2%) of litter with food packaging contributing a large portion of this. These findings indicate that local interventions are warranted to reduce litter in Port Elizabeth. – From a study by: Toshka Barnardo (Sustainable Seas Trust), Tanna Mae van Niekerk, Lorien Pichegru (Coastal and Marine Research Institute), Danica Marlin (Sustainable Seas Trust).
According to the results of the above survey, at Cape Recife waste collectors found 2,535 items, with a combined weight of 71.4 kg, over 10 days. Barnardo said 65% of the litter was plastic and 7% of the total waste was of foreign origin.
The bulk of the litter (802 pieces) they found was made of polystyrene and styrofoam. The second-largest number of items found discarded at Cape Recife, a popular fishing spot, was fishing gear, including fishing line, ropes and pieces of metal. Researchers also found 252 pieces of glass, 203 pieces of hard plastic and 133 food wrappers or other packaging.
Barnardo said that within the 10 days after leaving the Bluewater Bay beach pristine, they found 4,327 pieces of litter weighing 8.1kg. This included 1,417 pieces of polystyrene and styrofoam containers, and approximately equal amounts of plastic caps and rings, food wrappers and hard plastic pieces. Researchers also collected 273 earbuds from the beach.
The Sustainable Seas Trust (SST) launched Operation Clean Spot (https://sstafrica.org.za/my_map/CleanSpot.html) in 2021 with the aim to reduce the amount of waste in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro before it reaches the sea. The idea behind the initiative is for an organisation to “adopt” an area and make regular clean-ups of litter in that designated area.
The following groupings are the SST Top 5 for litter removal:
- WESSA Algoa Bay Branch – 4 296kg
- Pick ‘n Pay People n Planet – 2007kg
- SST Research Department – 791kg
- Zwartkops Conservancy – 1398kg
- SST – 432kg
What counts as littering? Litter, whether intentional or unintentional is a form of pollution resulting from improperly handled waste. Litter includes such things as cigarette butts, coffee cups, tires, plastic bags and food containers. Litter ends up on our sidewalks and roads, in our parks and on our private property.
Under section 27 of the National Environmental Management: Waste Act 59 of 2008, “No person may (a) throw, drop, deposit, spill or in any other way discard any litter into or onto any public place, land, vacant erf, stream, watercourse, street or road, or on any place to which the general public has access, except in a container or a place specifically provided for that purpose”.
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